The Fires of Industry
by Cesare Blanc
Summary: Book Three and Book Four as seen through's Asami's eyes. Her struggles, her thoughts, her fears, her ambitions... her feelings. Strictly Canon. Eventual Korrasami. Rated T, might change.
1. Preface

Preface

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><p>I swore to never write fanfics again. Too much original stuff to do. And I was serious about it.<p>

For... something like...six months? Then, _Change_ happened, and I feel back on board.

Now, I won't go on the many reasons why I ship them; Book Three and, even more, Book Four should be reason enough. But I do have a reason to write this stuff. It's to give Asami a bit of space. She's by now arguably the most important member of Team Avatar save Korra herself, and then one with whom Korra spent most of her time during the last season and-a-half.

She's not very present, though. Mako, Bolin, Tenzin, Lin... all very good and nice characters, that gravitate around Korra and share with her screen-time. Asami... not that much.

But, hey, what are obsessed fan-writers for?

Welcome to_ The Fires of Industry_, a story that was born as an attempt to keep my insulin down as I re-watched Book Three waiting for Book Four's episodes (writing this between _Reunion_ and _Remembrances_), to find a way to do something with all the energy I feel running through me as I think, wonder, analyze and just plan fawn over the beauty that is korrasami... and it became a bit more than that.

It will began with Asami's musings between the episodes, to actually touch her thoughts and feelings when they were obscured to us; I will stay as close to canon as I can. And, for the first time, maybe, just maybe, that will be enough and more than enough.

So please take a seat on your satomobile, and enjoy the ride.


	2. The Fires of Industry - I

**THE FIRES OF INDUSTRY  
><strong>

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><p><em>The old world will burn in the fires of industry.<em>

Saruman, _The Fellowship of the Ring_

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><p><strong>I<strong>

_Friendships forged in fire last forever. _

I remember reading words like those in my long years of solitude, when my horizon was made of Sato Mansion's walls and my sky was the gray wreath of factories' ceilings. I smelled burnt iron more than flowers and was lulled to sleep by the low _whirrr_ of cogs and grumble of engines: I remember learning how in the stories I read that heroes always stick together.

But I couldn't understand why a real-life hero like Korra had asked for my company that morning – an interesting development in a frantic day; it was night now, the sun had just set and I was once again sitting between iron walls, but this time in a castle of my own making.  
>Business waas easy: finding the best way to make people happy by making their lives a bit easier was a simple end, if sometimes achieved through not-so-simple means. After more than six months of the stuff and having just started to save Future Industries from collapse – again - I felt like Korra might have had after all those years in the White Lotus training ground. Muscles aching, excited for the new adventure and the great possibilities that opened before me.<p>

Then, President Raiko had to banish Korra; news spread like wildfire in Republic City, and as the sun set, so did Future Industries' reputation. Or so my advisor's had told me since the start of the meeting.

We all sat around a table, each of them with a cup of tea in their hands, and looking at things like we were waiting for an army of angry spirits to gobble us in the night; they were looking at each other, biting their lips, wringin their hands. I felt like I had a small army of nervous Makos all about to tell me they wanted 'a bit of space'.

"Your thinking is flawed," I said them, as I took a sip from the - a bit too sour – tea, "and you worry too much about President Raiko's involvement in all this. Politics giveth, politics taketh."

"The company won't be able to take another blow like this," said one of them, showing me charts and tables that proved him right, for sure.

"Are you ignoring the power the President can muster if he..." went on another, "... the prevision for the third trimester is catastrofic," concluded another one.

I held up a hand, making sure the tea didn't spill.

"Listen, everybody. I picked each of you for your capacity to keep a level mind in a critical moment; when you signed for this, you knew this was going to be a bumpy road. The world is full of contenders! The world is also full of people in dire need of our services."

I put down the cup on the table, and made sure to have all of their attentions; gray, blue, green eyes, all focused on me.

"Do we provide day-to-day care? That's the government's job. Do we provide control over nature's elements? That's a bender's job. Do we provide industrial mass-produced trash?" I asked with a smirk. "_That's_ Cabbage Corp's job."

A treble of laughter run across the room.

"And were you working for Cabbage, right now, you wouldn't be here all worried, but you'd have a semestral bonus and giving happy smiles to each other for having produced another thousand bad copies of a satomobile, or another thousand makeshift boats, or did an awful job with a road."

"But that's one thousand bad copies sold, President."

"Or one thousand boats that get _paid_."

"I know, I know," I conceded," and for one of our products that's sold, Cabbage sells three. But we're not Cabbage. We're not a sad excuse for a company that should create the world of tomorrow; we're _Future Industries_, my friends. We are the one leading, and if it seems like there's nothing around of us, it's because we're making it on the way! My f-," Hm. Got my tongue at the last moment,"... my _final goal_ for this company is to create the world we will all live in, not have a pile of metal scraps sold to the Earth Queen and go to bed feeling like we made a difference!"

I looked at them; some of them seemed convinced, a few even excited. Not all. I hoped they didn't caught the slip of my tongue bringing up my father. If only he stopped sending me those stupid letters so that I could move on more easily.

"To create this new world, President, we will need the money to build it. If Raiko cuts our sponsors or places an embargo on us due to your... ties to the Avatar, we're gonna see this company plummet quicker than a turtleduck eating a boulder."

I took another sip, letting my audience wait for my response.

"It's true that Raiko can make some bad moves on us, but these political maneuvers come and go. The city is in dire need of help with all the spirit vines; I am confident we'll get that contract, as soon as we get used to the changes. It will just take some time, and the R&D team is already studying ways to implement the vines in the architecture of the city. Nobody else is doing this, and this will be a huge opportunity for the company. And," I said with a smirk, "since when had a mere political man held the final word while making the future? The future is in this room. Sitting with me."

This gave them pause. I had kept the idea about adapting the city to the vines, and not the other way around after I heard of Korra's failed attempt at removing them, and what most likely caused it; it was my lotus tile in a game of Pai Sho.

After a while, a somehow more confident choir of comments began to fill up my ears, and the teacups began to be used; projects were worked on, words exchanged. By the end of the meeting, a few hours later, I was left with fifteen empty teacups, a bad case of headache and a feeling that I had convinced eight out of ten of my advisors to keep their faith in the company. As for the remaining twenty percent, too bad. Didn't need people without vision anyway.

The meeting room only held me and my chief advisor now, who was still looking around for some tea. His Fire Nation ascendancy, his bulky physique and his appreciation for tea made me liken him to the Lord Zuko's uncle Korra told me about.

"Zhan Khan," I asked him, "tell me, what about airship production?"

He lifted his head from the cup and smiled.

"We're ahead. Three new models funded, and forty-five already built and ready for delivery before the week. Cabbage recently shipped thirty to Ba-Sing-Se, but I'm sure we can convince the Fire Lord our craft is superior."

"That's good to hear. Lord Zuko is a friend. I'm sure we will place them."

A friend. That reminded me of my not-so-succesful attempt at teaching Korra how to drive, and of our conversation. After the Mako fiasco, I felt like there had been something of a wall between us. That brief trip and the few words exchanged... they felt good. As some long-needed oil between cogs...

"Yes, about that topic..." Zhan Khan played with his cup in his hands, a clear sign he was nervous, but looked me firm in the eyes, "I still think it would be far wiser to somehow cut your ties with the Avatar."

That made me frown.

"Zhan Khan..."

"President Raiko is facing a dire crisis; he will stop at nothing to keep the city in check, and this also means to keep his popularity from taking another nosedive. He's a fine specimen of political animal, one you'd not like to face against. He can hurt us badly. More than we already were by your public ties and friendship with the Avatar."

"It won't affect us in the long run. People change."

"But in the short run, it can ruin us. If you'd held a conference where you publicly distance yourself from the Avatar's actions, it could..."

"I hope you're not really suggesting..."

"It wouldn't be for real! I'm sure she'd understand you're doing this for the good of the company. She's the Avatar, she will understand. She owes you a lot!"

Yeah, she'd understand, I thought. She'd understand, if we'd had, say, a ten years friendship between us. Korra's like that. But with just that little connection, that little spark I only got a glimpse of earlier... it'd be like asking a blade of grass to bear a satomobile's weight.

And yes, Korra, owed me a lot.

"I won't, Zhan Khan. I won't. It will be better, trust me."

He ruffled his beard with a hand, and took another three long sips of tea.

"With all due respect, President, this is the emotional tantrum thrown by a girl barely out of her eighteen birthday who cannot accept how the real world works, and I truly believe you are hurting the company."

I left myself fall down on the pillows. Maybe I was. Almost surely I was. But Korra was almost the only person I felt like I could -maybe not right now, but in the future... - talk to, and we just had thrown each other a life-line of trust. Maybe I was selfish. But that was a way I _liked_ to be selfish.

"So, what's this plan with the airships, President?"

I looked at Zhan Khan. He had only a ghost of a smile on his lips, but I felt like that was enough.

"You have heard all these new rumors about airbenders popping up like daisies. What if the Avatar wants to take a break from chasing bad guys and help to gather these people together, to form a new Air Nation?"

"I feel like that would be an admirable goal."

"And what if that kept her away from Republic City enough for Raiko to calm his moustaches down? So that people don't link the Avatar's name to giant monsters in the bay anymore?"

"I feel like that would be a much needed breath of fresh air to our investors. In time."

"And what if she performed this 'admirable goal' riding on a Future Industries airship? Riding it with the President of said company, while the Avatar shows the entire world our airships are strong, beautiful and safe?"

Zhan Khan laughed.

"By the Spirits, President, you managed to make a deal with that guy Varrick and walk out alive, this might work just fine! When you need the airship?"

"In three days."

"Right away. Ah, I _needed_ a good news like this. I truly hope you're right, President. I really do."

_Yeah_, I thought as I looked outside, beyond the window and down to the pattern of lights of the sleeping Republic City, a pattern of lights I have seen change and evolve every year, but never like after the vines came up. I felt like one of those vines had just sprout up between me and Korra, and it felt a bit bitter, like the tea's aftertaste in my mouth, still very young, and fragile; yet, I thought again, Korra was more or less the reason I sat down there planning strategies with Zhan Khan. Without Korra, Amon would have changed the face of the world forever; without Korra, I'd still be under her father's spell. Without Korra, I'd still be in an unhealthy relationship.

Sure, I'd might have had more peace in my life; raced my car more. Attended more parties...

But without Korra, and Bolin, and, yes, Mako even, I'd never seen the odd stars of the Pole, or flew a aircraft through a barrage, or... survived a few nights ago.

Korra owed me, but right then, I felt like I owed her a whole lot, too.

And with that thought in mind, I believed, really believed for a moment, right then and there, that I could save this. That I'd enjoy a bit of respite. Maybe build up a bit of a friendship with Korra.

Spirits was I ever wrong.


	3. The Fires of Industry - II

II 

Four weeks in, four weeks of failures and four more beats of the airship's great metal heart. I felt like I was starting to get the gist of it; the first time I went down with chief-mechanic Sao into the deep belly of the airship, between the cogs, the steam vein-like pipelines, tanks and platforms like odd internal organs, I felt very little, and shaken b the continuous noise coming from the floor, the walls, the ceiling; everything was dull and barely outlined in the thin red light of the lamps.

It shook both colour and perception, and the noise vibrated through skin and bone, impossible to keep out; it was like coming into another world, one where my teeth fought to escape my mouth, and every bone was kept together by a flimsy stretch of muscle and skin against the endless rattling.

And the dull beat of the engines went on and on, a beat that, I come to be aware only in time, gave me the rhythm of every action: one beat, one pause; one beat, get up, get down, use the flame, one beat, get up, get down, bend iron with the hammer, one beat, get, up, get down.

And I asked for this; I watched Sao's back, bent as he was checking out a few pipelines with a piece of glass to see if there were any leaks. I was starting to understand why he insisted that much to not allow the esteemed president of Future Industries into the dirty belly of the airship, where very unladylike things went on.

I told him I was no lady and that it couldn't be worse than fighting evil spirit monsters; weeks later, I still thought I was no lady – and I had the grease and oil stains to prove it – but I was starting to think again on the fighting monsters bit. The airship itself was one, strong and terrible and yet so frail, prone to failures, little accidents that would soon, left unchecked, turn to maladies ready to threaten the entire structure. Corrosion; obstructed pipelines; short-circuits; gas leaks; condensers going haywire...  
>Compared to the definition of a disaster in a business meeting room – peanuts ran out – this was a struggle with death.<p>

Four weeks in, I felt tired, aching, coughing from the fumes, sweaty from the heat, and most likely to get everybody who worked on airships a well-deserved raise.

At least I didn't feel alone; thought I was the famous esteemed very frail President of the company, at least some of my employees turned co-workers came to accept me as one of them; when my make-up melt from the sweat, my hair became some sort of icky mass, and my working suit feel prey to grease, oil and other not better identified liquids, I looked and felt like one of them.  
>Even if I only worked with them two hours per day, and to learn, not to get a salary. But I felt like I was getting the gist of how they made this metal shack fly, and how to improve on future models; the more I learned, though, the more I felt like there were some structural limits that, until a better metallurgy and iron-carbon alloys were developed, were impossible to overcome.<p>

Most of the iron wrought here was made by metalbenders – that accelerated the production by a factor of twenty, but the impure metal was prone to corrosion and structurally frail, and it needed constant attention. Left to itself, the airship would turn to rust in a few years.

I compared that thought with the old Fire Nation warships, many of them still standing, abandoned, after more than one century and a half; they were put together with strong, refined alloy, and were made to last. Maybe Future Industries would benefit from taking a page from the past's book, I mused as I struggled to bent a pipeline back into shape.

I felt a hand touching my shoulder, and I saw Sao as he crouched next to me and corrected my movements with the hammer once again. Live and learn. I smiled at him and tried the more gentle approach he showed me, and after a while the pipe looked a little less as if it had been chewed on by Naga.

Nodding to Sao, I thanked him, yelling over the noise, and he made a little curtsy in the small space; I laughed at his deference. Sure, no one of the men forgot what I was, but some, like Sao here, made an effort to appreciate _who_ I was, and on this ship connection was so much important to me; I would have had better luck talking about Zhan Khan's worried radio calls, or the very bad news concerning my stocks to Pabu than anybody on the ship.

Though, I mused, as I crouched a little further down on the road and kept on working on another piece of metal in dire need of a make-up, I guess of all of them now at least Korra would had made an effort to try and listen. I could almost see her, with a confused yet determined look on her face, as I tried to teach her the concept of compounded interest and shares, while I looked more and more like I was talking in a foreign language, and her eyes popped out in the effort. Heh. Good luck training a girl who until a few months ago wasn't even familiar with the _concept_ of money into finance.

She was trying. I felt it in the way her body moved, in the way she looked as if she was biting her tongue before arguing with someone; even the other day, when she went down with Mako and Bolin to try and take that airbender boy with them, they told me it took her almost two minutes before losing patience. Which, for Korra, was a remarkable effort.

I felt like there was something in her, something she wouldn't really like to talk about, because she was the Avatar, and because she was Korra; during these four nights I had worked on understanding how a ship could work and how to keep it afloat, it felt like a rebirth to be accepted into a group thanks to what I could do with two hands and a hammer, and not because I was the esteemed daughter of diabolical mastermind Hiroshi Sato.

Was that what Korra was looking for? Yet being the Avatar had always been so important a part of her identity... it was clear she was trying to reach out, but reach out for... what? And why it looked like she was trying to stay in my company? Might it be she wanted a feminine touch? She wanted some girl-talk? But she could have had that from Pema, or... somebody else. Why me?

Then, I hit the bolt on the head, both with my hands and with my mind. Staying there, in the dark, hot belly of the airship felt like a descent into a circle of hell, breathing iron, and yet, to my aching muscles and my dancing mind, taking on data, data data to implement in further models, it felt like a rebirth. Korra had cut down all the ties with her past lives; for the first time... for the first time in millennia, ever since the Avatar cycle began, she was experimenting something we all did, so much that we felt it was completely good and natural: being all alone in her own head.

Of course she was reaching out.  
>I stopped working.<br>Of course she was trying to find a connection. A connection with me? A non-bender? I felt flattered. As I resumed my work on the pipeline, I felt like I understood Korra a bit more.

I would just have to wait and see if this need for connection would finally become somewhat of a stronger friendship; I would have liked that. Of course, there was another reason why the Avatar would have liked a connection... and that made me laugh out loud! Spirits! As if there was even any chance of something like that... I wouldn't even know how that'd work!

Still chuckling, I went back to work on the pipeline.

If only I had stopped laughing for a moment and actually entertained that thought, that Korra might have wanted something else... well... many things would have been different; who knows, I could have saved the both of us much pain.

What a sad irony that even who makes future cannot see it. 

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><p><em>Author's notes<em> 

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><p>This scene took a long while to be completed. Mostly because I was deep into the hype, then turned terror, then turned relief about episode eight, Remembrances; in the end I can say it was a pretty important episode: it gave us some long-needed insight on Mako's behaviour back in book 2, it gave us that wonderful scene with the villains, it gave us a lovely korrasami moment over tea. Our lovely ladies are bonding more and more. Here's to hoping they seal that bond by the end of the season!<p>

Also, this second scene took long because I wanted to show Asami in the middle of workmanship; up until this point she has been shown to be adept at driving pretty much everything with a steering wheel, but I always felt like the transition from ace pilot to Mac Guyver was a bit rushed; I also felt like starting to show something Asami truly cares about, **connection**. This will be in fact one of the central themes of this story. But, yes, workmanship: it turns out I haven't the slightest idea of how actual airship fly, so that prompted a whole afternoon of research about metal alloys, a brief history of non-rigid, semi-rigid and rigid airships, a look on engines, and stuff stuff stuff.

Pretty interesting, because it also remembered me that most of the metal used to build things that can be steered/used/directed by metalbenders has to be _impure_. And this means, unless some specific alloy is used, brittle and prone to corrosion, or harmful reactions with nitrogen, other than oxygen; thoughts lead to thoughts and I decided in the end that all this research wasn't that necessary for this single scene (though it helped me with following ones!), so I ended up using only bits of all the things I read about.

I hope you liked this piece; I also want to say thank you to **anne** for her review (be assured that she will develop that potential!) and wonderful words of welcome back.  
>A big thank you to all who favouritedfollowed this fic.  
>Your support fuels my fires.<p>

Next time, Asami will find herself for the first time truly alone with Korra. What will be her thoughts be? Other than _damn dat booty shake dat booty grab dat booty_


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